Re: Reality
vs. reality

: : : : : : are the structures
of 'Not all..to be (or Do )sth else'
: : : : : : and 'All sth to be (or do)
not sth else' still in used side by side ? coz too me they are mean two difference
things. And I even don't know if the way to understand 'All that glitters is not
gold' as 'Not all that glitters is gold' still conventional in modern english.
If it is , then how should we differenciate the meanings of those two structures.

:
: : : : : By the way, I have a wild guess that 'Not all that glitters is gold'could
be rephrased in full as 'it is not that all that glitters is gold'.

: : : :
: : Thank you all

: : : : : Your last statement is correct. Logically, "It is
not that all that glitters is gold" says the same thing as "Not all that glitters
is gold." We could also say "It is not true that all that glitters is gold."

:
: : : : I can't answer the first question because I don't know what you mean by
"sth else."

: : : : If you want to avoid confusion, do not use constructions
in English such as "all X are not Y", because they are unclear. The expression
"all that glitters is not gold" is only permissible because it's traditional -
not because it's well-expressed or clear. (In fact, it's quite the opposite, as
you yourself found out).

: : : : I reproduce Fred's post (fractionally edited)
from the earler thread on this subject, because he explained it far better than
I could.

: : : : *** start snip ***

: : : : The sentence 'All that glitters
is not gold' is used in logic text books. It often occurs in the
: : : : section
on Aristotle's logic. Sentences of the form 'All X are not Y' are eschewed since
they are ambiguous, since the word 'not' may apply solely to 'Y' or to the whole
sentence 'All X are Y.'

: : : : If the former, we get 'All X are non-Y' or
'No X are Y.'

: : : : If the latter we get 'It is not true that all X are Y'
or 'Some X are *not* Y.'

: : : : *** end snip ***
: : : :
: : : : Basically,
no native English speaker would ever use any other phrase formed in a "all X are
not Y" fashion. To use an example, we'd either say "all politicans are dishonest",
if we wanted to damn politicians in their entirety for untruthfulness, or we'd
say "not all politicians are honest", if we wanted to admit that a few politicians
are liars. We would absolutely NEVER say "all politicians are not honest" - it's
just not English.

: : : English speakers do say things like that. Maybe they
shouldn't, but they do.

: : : "I'm going to bed."
: : : "Come on, everybody's
staying up for one more game of cards."
: : : "Well, everybody doesn't have
to get up at six tomorrow morning."

: : Hmmmm - the example isn't that similar.
It's in the singular, uses a modal construction of "to get up" rather than just
"to be", and is further skewed by the final speaker's tongue-in-cheek implied
treatment of "everybody" as a proper noun. Even despite all this, over here in
the UK, we'd be far FAR more liable to say:

: : "Well, not everybody has to
get up at six tomorrow morning."

: It is, too, similar--similar in its logic
even though the details you mentioned do differ. Treatment of "everybody" as a
proper noun was not intended. "All that glitters" is singular, and "everybody"
is similarly singular in form and plural in meaning.

Now, being a marketing man, I definitely admire the cunning
and the artifice with which that last example has been created - the use of "probably"
to ensure that the first half is not definitive, and the use of a semi-paradoxical
"but" clause to post-indicate the meaning of the main clause. However, you lot
over the pond would really honestly be prone to saying something like that mouthful?
Over here, we'd be much happier with "probably not all..." constructions.